Merry Christmas to all! I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season. My past few days have been splendid – hanging out with family, crossing the final few items off my shopping to-do list, and eating well and exercising. The fun won’t stop after this weekend, either – on the 26th, I’m heading to Puerto Rico, where I’m meeting up with my aunt, uncle, and cousins and getting on a cruise ship! We’ll spend a week cruising the Caribbean, and I’m extraordinarily excited! I’ve given a lot of thought into how I’ll keep healthy in a food-crazy cruise ship environment, and have a plan of attack, but that’s a blog for another day. In fact, I’ll have a whole week to blog about cruising!

Right now, I want to share a big, exciting Christmas announcement:

I’m going be on television again! It won’t be a long appearance, but it’s an appearance nonetheless. Here’s what happened: A few weeks ago, I showed up to take one of Richard Simmon’s classes at Slimmons, and the lobby was full of camera equipment. It was a crew from the daytime talk show The Doctors!

The Doctors is a show all about health, wellness, and medicine, with a panel of four hosts, all of whom are physicians. They’re doing a show in January about getting healthy in the new year, and Richard’s participating. So Richard gathered everyone, and before he started the class, he taped a little message that will air during the show, and in it, he asks me a question (which I answer) and shares how much weight I’ve lost.

That’s it. If I don’t end up on the cutting room floor, I’ll be featured for a matter of seconds, max. A staffer from the show called me the next week and asked me to send in a “before” picture, so I’m hopeful I’ll make it on the air.

After Richard taped that message, one of the hosts of the show, Dr. Jim Sears, stayed and took the class with us, so the crew stuck around and taped most of the class. Dr. Sears ended up exercising right next to me, so I might end up in the background of some of that footage, should they chose to use it. Dr. Sears told me afterward that he had a blast, and that looked to be true.

Mark your calendars! This episode of The Doctors is tentatively scheduled to air on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 (and I’ll monitor the situation and alert you if the airdate changes). It airs at a different time in different cities, so you can go to this website to find out when it airs in your town!

What an exciting week, and it’s only Tuesday! Over the weekend I conquered a major fitness goal, and yesterday, I was on TV! I’ve been on TV a few times in my life. That’s no secret. After all, a lot of you learned about this blog because I was a guest on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” (You can watch my interview here.)

Now I have another TV appearance to add to my list. Yesterday, I was on Fox News! They called me up a few months ago and begged me to let them make an hour-long special all about me. I thought about it, and came back with a counter-offer: “How about I appear for a matter of seconds in the background of a video greeting?”

I’m kidding about Fox News calling me. That never happened. Here’s what did happen: Last week at Slimmons, before Richard Simmons’ class started, Richard asked all of us to help him with a video greeting for Neil Cavuto, who has a show on Fox News called “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” Neil was going to be celebrating 15 years at Fox News, and Richard was going to contribute a video message that they were going to air during the broadcast.

I had to look up what channel Fox News is on my cable line-up, because I hardly ever watch it. The only time I’ve watched Fox News in the past couple years was to see one of Richard’s appearances on Neil Cavuto’s show – he’s been on a bunch of times, and Richard considers Neil a good friend. But being on TV is being on TV, and thankfully, I’m tall, so I’m easy to spot in a crowd.

Because I don’t have the technology to take video from my TiVo and put it online, you’ll have to do with a photo I took of my TV screen (I’ve looked for the clip online, and haven’t found it). It’s low rent, I know, but it’s better than nothing! Do you see me?

HERE I AM!

The message is about 20 seconds long. We clapped for Neil, Richard congratulated him, and Richard said that he liked Neil more than fried chicken. Then we clapped again, and that was that.

Seconds later, Richard started class. Here’s the video from that class. You can see fleeting glimpses of me – I’m the tall one wearing all black and a white bandanna as a headband:

I should give out a shout-out to my friend Michelle, who works with Richard and is the one who dodges elbows and flying feet to record Richard’s classes, and then edits them into these videos for YouTube. She also recorded the Neil Cavuto greeting. Hey Michelle!

And if you wanna see more of me on television, check out these links (I already linked my Ellen interview at the beginning of this post):

Hey – didya see me on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”? I was a guest on the show way back in January, discussing my weight loss with Ellen and Richard Simmons. If you missed it, you had a second opportunity in March, when they aired a rerun of the episode. Didya miss that too?

You’re in luck! I’ve learned that my episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” is airing for the third time next Wednesday, July 13th, 2011! Here’s the episode preview from the Ellen website:

Did you read the third paragraph? See where it says “one of Ellen’s former staff members”? THAT’S ME!

If you don’t know the time or channel the show airs in your town, go here and plug your zip code into the field in the upper left corner.

Of course, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you don’t have to wait until next Wednesday if you haven’t seen it yet. You can just click on Watch Me On Ellen at the top of this page, and you’ll find links to watch on YouTube or Ellen’s website. But if you can’t watch videos on your computer for some reason, or want your not-very-computer-savvy mom/grandparent/sister/friend/uncle to watch, than Wednesday’s your day.

So… shout it from the rooftops, post it on your Facebook wall, send out a tweet, talk about it at the fancy cocktail party you’re going to this weekend: I’m gonna be on TV next Wednesday, and you and everyone you know should most definitely watch. Even if you’ve seen it already.

SPEAKING OF ME ON TV… My appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” wasn’t my first time on national television. I made my national television debut way back in 1999, when I was in the audience at “The Jenny Jones Show” and I stood up and made a sassy comment. And since this post is all about me on TV, I thought I’d share, for the first time on this blog, footage of that show. You are in for a treat.

Before I get to the clip, here’s a little background. I was 20 years old and in college when all this went down, and I was a huge Jenny Jones fan. At the time, the show was so popular that the NBC station in Detroit aired new episodes in the mornings and reruns at 12:30 at night, after Leno (Conan was pushed to 1:30am, airing after Jenny). That meant that I fell asleep nearly every night watching Jenny preside over all kinds of crazy stuff: geek-to-chic makeovers, out-of-control teens, girls that were too young (or too old) to be wearing slutty clothing, and so on. I loved that Jenny took so many questions and comments from the audience, so I planned an entire spring break around going to Chicago to attend a taping, with the goal of standing up, making a comment, and getting myself on TV.

I succeeded. They must have liked my comment a lot, because not only am I on the show, but they also put me prominently in the commercial for that episode!

You can watch for yourself. You only need to watch the first 30 seconds (to see the commercial), but if you want to see my comment in context, then skip ahead: I start talking at the 7:59 mark. Here it is!

It’s been about 7 or 8 years since I’ve seen that clip (since, until very recently, I only had it on VHS – and thanks to my buddy Austin for helping convert it to DVD), but I will never stop enjoying it. That shirt was my favorite shirt, and I’m sure I spent 30 minutes (and used 5 different products) on my hair that morning. What I don’t know is what I weighed at that time: my college years fell into the vast period in my life where I didn’t own a scale at all. I’m not quite as heavy there as I was when I started this weight loss journey, but I’m certainly a lot less heavy now! And for that, I say…

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In A Nutshell

A big hello to everyone that's discovering Keep It Up, David for the first time! I'm glad you're here.

My name is David. I live in Los Angeles, and I'm 35 years old. In January 2010, I began eating better and exercising more, so I could lose weight. So far, so good - I've lost and kept off 160 pounds! But it's a tough road, and I need to keeping finding new ways to keep motivated and on-track. I'll blog about my progress and share my struggles and successes. Join me on my journey!